ANZ to face criminal cartel charges
SYDNEY: Australian banking giant, the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ANZ), is set to face criminal cartel charges over a multi-billion-dollar capital raising, along with its advisers Deutsche Bank and Citigroup, said regulators yesterday.
The charges, to be laid by federal prosecutors, come at a torrid time for Australia’s major lenders as a royal commission probes misconduct in the finance industry.
ANZ in 2015 raised A$2.5 billion (RM7.53 billion) from institutional investors and up to A$500 million from retail investors to help meet the cost of tougher regulatory requirements.
But the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) claimed after an investigation that there were “cartel arrangements relating to trading in ANZ shares” following the share placement.
Prosecutors would allege there was “an arrangement or understanding allegedly made” by the joint lead managers of the bank’s institutional equity placement of some 80.8 million shares in August 2015, said ANZ.
ANZ, its group treasurer Rick Moscati, the share placement’s underwriters Deutsche Bank and Citi, among others, would be charged over the alleged criminal cartel conduct, said the ACCC.
“It will be alleged that ANZ and the individuals were knowingly concerned in some or all of the conduct,” said ACCC chairman Rod Sims in a statement.
According to the ACCC, cartel conduct occurred when businesses acted together, instead of competing against each other, to drive up the profit of cartel members.
ANZ chief risk officer Kevin Corbally said the company “acted in accordance with the law in relation to the placement and on that basis the bank intends to defend both the company and our employee”.
ANZ said it was also cooperating with an investigation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission into whether the bank should have disclosed the joint lead managers took up some 25.5 million shares of the placement.